by DL Kopp
It disappeared.
I found myself walking toward the ocean. I needed to know what I was seeing for once. But though I stared and stopped at the very edge of the water, it didn't reappear.
It was only when the moon had moved halfway across the sky that I trudged back toward the house.
Chapter Nineteen
No one at school knew the name Octavius. I asked around, even talking to jerks like Rich and Jana, and nothing. I had the added benefit of Rich stalking me through the halls the rest of the day, even following me part of the way home.
What was it with the creeps in this town?
I stumbled in the house and up to my bed immediately. All the weirdo nights were taking a toll; although I was keeping up with my homework without any difficulty, I had spent the moments not searching for news of Octavius falling asleep on my desk and on my lunch. It felt like I was turning into some kind of zombie of the night.
Sure enough, I awakened again when the moonlight was streaming through my windows, and there was crying echoing through the secret passage.
I jumped out of bed and went inside the passage. The crying got louder as I approached, and I wondered what I was doing. Was it a good idea to head toward the creepy monster in the lab, especially when I had no means of going in or blocking him? Then again, it was better than not knowing what was going on, so I pressed forward.
I stopped in the hall behind the kitchen and listened.
The crying had actually ceased for a moment, and I heard my father's voice.
“See?” he was saying. “It's all right, Byron. Nothing's going to hurt you.”
Byron? The monster had a name? As if things couldn't get any wackier. I leaned in closer to listen.
My father was still speaking, but now, in a more professional tone, and with pauses. “Yes, yes. All the nerves appear to have perfect responses in the necessary categories....well, of course I'm going to keep testing, but--”
Another voice spoke, and I assumed it was Byron. But I couldn't hear anything specific. I pressed my ear against the door and tried to listen, but they spoke in hushed voices. And the hushed voices cut off, quickly followed by footsteps, so I ran back toward the passage.
I had no idea what I would find next.
Chapter Twenty
Never in my life had I been so ready for the weekend to arrive.
I awoke early on Saturday morning, before the sun even rose, and I was immediately awake and alert. The weather had grown violent sometime overnight. The wind shrieked through the tower over my bedroom, and the rain pummeled my door mercilessly, smacking against the glass like a torrential downpour of fists.
Huddled in my blankets, I stared out my door and the towering windows on either side of it. The clouds roiled, angry and black. I hadn’t seen weather like this all week.
A week. I couldn’t believe I had only been in Coos Bay for a week. It already felt like a lifetime.
I piled my pillows behind myself against the headboard, pulled out my journal – a separate entity from my poetry – and began to write.
Dear diary:
What a strange week. I feel like I’m going insane. My parents locked my into my bedroom (I think), I met a hot guy who might not be as friendly as I thought even though I still want him really bad, and there’s a monster living in my basement.
I’m not sure how much of this has actually happened. I’ve come down with a fever that’s turned my days and nights into a haze of half-dreams and nightmares. Maybe my mom didn’t lock me into my bedroom. Maybe Octavius never existed. Maybe I didn’t go into my dad’s basement and see that thing…
Byron. His name is Byron.
I stared down at the page, gnawing my bottom lip.
Byron.
Last night, I had heard him screaming again. Was it a scream of fear, as my dad seemed to think, or pain? And what was hurting him?
“I think I’m going crazy,” I muttered, closing my journal again and setting it on the bedside table. Unfortunately, it was the only logical explanation for everything that had been happening.
Oh well. Logic was totally overrated anyway.
I pulled myself out of bed slowly, trying not to succumb to dizziness. Although I was mentally alert – or so it seemed – my body still felt like I was suffering from one of the worst cases of the flu in my life.
Carefully making my way up the stairs, and trying not to pay attention to the secret passage at the base of the tower, I went into the room at the top. It was small and dusty, but I had ordered the movers to place my desk and a couple over-stuffed chairs there, and they had complied. It was cozy. There was no electricity running this high in my tower, but I had also stationed an oil lamp on the desk, and I bent to light it. It was enough to fill my room with flickering golden light.
I stuffed a sheet I had dragged from my bed to the crack under one of the draftiest windows, and the light stopped flickering so madly. I glanced across to the tower above my parents’ room as I sealed the hole.
There was a light in their tower.
I stopped to stare. There was definitely light in their room—and motion. And when did my dad put a lightning rod on top of his tower?
“He’s up to something again,” I muttered, glaring in his general vicinity.
My dad was fond of bizarre experiments, so it wasn’t too surprising. He had started out in his native Hungary as a freelance scientist, but a private organization in the United States had recognized his brilliance and paid for him to become a citizen and move across the pond.
Since then, he had worked at a variety of universities – one of which was the place he met my mom, not too shabby a scientist herself – and now finally for the private corporation again in Oregon.
He was a biologist by trade, but a real Renaissance man of science by hobby—he was great at chemistry, and physics, and everything else that required a good brain for numbers and a persistent desire to experiment. Ever since I was a small girl, he had dedicated long hours to building strange machines and concocting odd potions. Our entire house in Georgia, except my bedroom, had housed something of his as it bubbled and fermented.
I pulled one of my fat chairs around to the window and sat down to watch him work from a distance. My dad and I had once been really close, but when I hit high school age and refused to be sent to a boarding school for the scientifically minded – I loved poetry too much to be forced to do experiments all day like him – that had been the end of our amiable relationship.
But what in the world was he doing at four in the morning?
Something moved outside the tower, and I sat up straight, squinting my eyes to try to make out detail through the rain.
Was that… my dad? Crawling on the roof of the tower?
“He’s trying to connect wire to the lightning rod,” I muttered. Great. My dad was going to get struck by lightning and killed.
As though to agree with me, a clap of thunder burst overhead.
I shivered, but tried not to worry. He was a professional.
Yeah, right.
I distracted myself by pulling out my book binding paraphernalia. I didn’t want to make an entire new poetry book yet – I liked to wait until I had about a hundred new poems – but I could at least make them look nice while I continued to write.
Preparing the string and covers, I continued to throw occasional glances to my working dad. He was still on the roof.
“What an idiot,” I muttered, wrapping the covers in recycled paper I had made myself. I had already put holes in the cardboard underneath, just waiting for the pink yarn to thread through them.
My dad started to climb down the roof and slipped.
I dropped my book, staring out the window. He hung from the roof by one hand. “Crap,” I hissed. “He’s going to kill himself.”
I ran down the stairs and out my bedroom door, hoping I could get there in time to save my father’s life.
Chapter Twenty-One
My parents' room was still much lik
e mine, but with more stuff. That made it easy to run up the steps of the tower and stick my head out the window: no wasted time figuring out where things were. Although it would have served certain reckless jerks right if I had.
Dad was hanging just out of reach, trying to grab the storm drain with his other hand. It wasn't going so well.
“Dad!”
“Calliope!” It was a measure of how much he did stupid stuff that he didn't fall completely when he heard my voice.
“What are you doing?” I screamed over the roar of the storm.
He scowled. “I told you--”
His free hand slipped, and he swung dramatically. He cried out, and I gave a high-pitched scream.
“I'm fine,” Dad yelled back. “Just...give me a hand?”
I reached out, but he was still too distant to grab from just the window. Perfect.
“If I die doing this,” I said, shaking my head. “I am so haunting you!”
With a shudder, I swung onto the ledge outside the window. It was stone, and slippery, so my foot lost traction almost immediately, and I ended up doing the near-splits outside of the window. My lady business didn't appreciate this.
I threw out a few choice words that I hoped were eaten by the wind and righted myself. My dad was patiently hanging there.
“Ready?” he asked.
“For what?” I shouted back.
I soon found out.
He swung dramatically in my direction, but on purpose this time. I could see his fingers were starting to slip, and my heart raced.
I waved my hands. “No, no!”
But he flew through the air toward me. I squeezed my eyes shut and contemplated – for less than a second – about ducking back inside.
What I actually did was take the impact of his midair flight and turn toward the window. We both crashed inside, my dad on the floor and me against the glass, across the room, and down half of the stairs in the tower.
I lay twisted on the stairs in a pool of my own blood. I didn't know how serious it was, since I wasn't in much pain, but I wondered if I was going to die.
That could be interesting.
The world faded to black as my dad screamed my name.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I entered a realm of light and beauty. And not alone.
Under my legs was the most beautiful golden creature I had ever seen. It made me wonder why unicorns were usually depicted as white; the yellow color of the one I was riding was one of the most glorious colors I had ever seen.
He nickered, and I caressed his mane.
“You pretty thing,” I told him.
He bared square teeth. I slid off his back and fed him an apple from a tree; it looked like we were in my apple orchard, which had brilliant sunlight making it glow. The sort of sunlight Oregon rarely got, of course, but if this was the afterlife, then it was going to be how I wanted it.
As if on cue, a shadow appeared at the end of the orchard. Octavius. He was as beautiful as ever, even more beautiful in contrast to the pure gold around him. It was as if his imperfect perfection was made more perfect being surrounded by traditional perfection. He walked forward, and the leaves from the apple trees showered around him, making a carpet of white for him to tread upon.
“Hello,” he sang. “Who's your friend?”
I pat the unicorn's neck. “I don't know, but isn't he pretty?”
Octavius grinned. “He's nothing next to you.”
I flushed. I didn't agree, of course, but even I felt somewhat improved by the surroundings.
This had to be Heaven. There was no other explanation.
There was a crunch behind me, and I spun. The white dress I wore spun with me, almost in slow motion.
A boy my age stood on the other side of the unicorn. He was familiar, but different, and I realized: Byron. But not as I had seen him, tortured and nearly naked; he was whole, and his skin was pink and glowing, as if this was how he was meant to be the whole time.
“Calliope,” he said. His voice wasn't as musical as Octavius's, but it was pleasant all the same, when he wasn't wracked with agony.
“Byron,” I said.
He smiled, and warmth spread within me.
I had never been happier in my life, surrounded by all the men I loved.
Which meant, of course, that it couldn't last.
I fell into darkness once more, and with it came pain and the feeling of being ripped, like I would never be whole if I was away from the golden place.
Death was my home. I knew that now.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My eyes opened, and an angry black sky stared down at me.
I was moving away from it. It took me a minute to recognize the sucking, rushing sensation in my stomach as the sensation of falling.
The world moved in slow motion.
I flung my hand out. There was a window just beyond my grasp, my father reaching for me, his mouth opened in a silent scream. All I could hear was the roaring of thunder that could have just as easily been my thudding heart.
I tried to scream, “No!” but there was no breath for it.
Something jerked my leg. Flipped me over. And still I fell.
The ceiling of my family’s manor rushed toward me.
Another jerk, and my hip popped as though it was going to get ripped from the socket. My ankle screamed.
I threw my hands in front of my face the instant before I hit the roof—but something kept me from hitting it.
That same something slithered up my leg and wrapped around my waist, beginning to drag me down the house’s roof even as I tried to grab the tiles with my slipping fingers. I finally looked down, and what I saw nearly made me pass out again.
A black mass of tentacles, endless and vast, was emerging from the ocean. And it was dragging me toward it.
I shrieked, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to find a handhold. The tentacle jerked again, and it ripped me free from the roof entirely.
Freefall.
Another tentacle caught me, wrapped around my chest. A third enveloped my knees and traced up my back to cover my mouth even as I tried to keep screaming.
The tentacles wrenched me down the cliff face to the beach, smacking me against the sand.
Water streamed into my eyes, and the thunder roared its fury above. A thick, slimy covered in squid-like suckers fastened to my cheek, and white fluid slapped across my face. Digestive fluid?
I tried to kick the tentacles off of me, but I had no space to get leverage. And when I saw the gaping, yawning black mouth – filled with thousands of rows of razor-sharp teeth – I lost the will to fight entirely.
A purple tongue thrashed in its mouth, stretching for me like its hundreds of other tentacles. Now that it had me on the beach, it was receding back into the water, and my legs were pulled into the ocean first. The water was freezing in contrast to the hot tentacles.
I was about to be eaten. It seemed appropriate, in a way.
Please, God… make it quick.
“Get your slimy suckers off of her!”
I knew that voice.
Twisting in the monster’s grip, I saw what looked like a giant bird come swooping off the cliff. But it wasn’t an eagle—it was a man with broad wings, inky black like a raven’s. His body was lean and muscular. I vaguely remembered that body pressing against me.
Octavius?
His battle cry as he plummeted toward the beast was a vicious song, brutal and piercing. He wielded a mighty blade as long as he was tall, and as he turned and dove, he slashed at one of the tentacles with it.
The tentacle tore from its body, splattering to the beach with gushing white fluid. The appendage wrapped around my chest went slack.
He flapped hard, gaining altitude, and then came back down with a dark scream of glory.
Another slash. A spurt.
The beast shrieked and wailed, thrashing in the water. Huge waves swept up on the beach, engulfing me in water. I came up sputtering, sal
t water streaming from my nose and mouth—but the tentacle was gone.
“Die!” Octavius howled, and then he plunged into the writhing mass of tentacles… and disappeared.
“Octavius!” I cried, struggling to stand in the surf.
The monster began thrashing even harder, sending the water rising into the air in thick plumes.
And then it exploded.
I shielded my head, dropping to my knees as black pieces of the tentacles rained around me. Thick white discharge, like whipping cream, splattered on the sand and onto me.
With a final groan, the monster sank into the water, and the ocean swallowed it whole.
I stared, my hands trembling. “Octavius?” I whispered to the sky, but there was no sign of him.
Had he died saving me?
The waves swept up on the beach around me, and I began to cry. I was so cold in my night gown, out on the lonely beach, and the one man I knew I loved – for all that our relationship was confusing, the feeling in my heart had to be love – might have just died.
Another wave crashed around me, and a form washed onto the beach not ten feet away.
I scrambled to it on my knees, and found Octavius curled into a ball, his wings wrapped around him like a protective shell. Wings. I was stunningly unsurprised. They fit his perfection.
Rolling him over gently, making sure to stretch his wings out so they wouldn’t crumple under him, I smoothed his black hair off his forehead. His face was slack as though he was asleep. Maybe I should do CPR. Did I know how to do CPR? Well, I had seen a lot of movies.
I bent down, touching my lips to his.
He moved, his hands coming up to grip my arms. I opened my eyes, startled, but his lips were so soft and gentle. He was kissing me.
He’s alive!
The thought was such a relief that I kissed him back, tangling my hands in his hair. Octavius pulled my over his body, rolling so that he was atop me, and I continued to kiss him eagerly, like the first breath of air after suffocating for too long.